I too, read both of Kerr's works and I was very impressed by them.

Saying that the Japanese people don't care about what is happening or don't do anything to try and stop it isn't being entirely fair. Hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions against the construction of Kyoto station and Kyoto tower in massive grassroots campaigns, but they were completely ignored by the people in power. The movement against the construction of Narita Airport was lead by ordinary citizens who occupied the building and fought against it for years, winning a lot of public support, which was then ignored by the government. These days there are movements against all sorts of things the government is doing, from US bases in Okinawa, to Kobe's idiotic plan to build a useless airport, but the government, which is totally beholden to the construction industry, simply ignores them.

There are a few exceptions which are quite heartening. The governor of Nagano Prefecture, Tanaka San is quite an honest politician who has scrapped a couple of dam projects that were obvious pork bellies. In Kyushu citizens were succesful in blocking the construction of a dam over a beautiful river by forcing a referendum in which about 95% of the votes were against the government plan.

Still, those kinds of victories are few and far between. Its a shame, this country has the potential to be the nicest to live in the world, but because it is run by fools it us one of the worst, at least among industrialized countries.

Also, arnadstephen, just as a correction to your post, Kyoto has in fact been bulldozed. I've been there on many occasions, its a city of ugly plastic and concrete as far as the eye can see just like every other city here. In the guidebooks you see pictures of pretty temples, but those are all well framed, close up pictures. If the camera gave you a wider view, you would see the giant pachinko parlors, power lines and concrete mountains that surround them. Its a depressing place to visit.